A bill to
kill the initiative petition process is being polled today in the
Election Laws Committee.
It pretends to be a "good government" bill, though it is opposed by
"good government’ groups who respect the voters and sometimes use the
petition process themselves.
It pretends to prevent fraud, but means to prevent issues from reaching
the voters.
Fact # One. Fraud has never been a problem with initiative petitions.
People who sign the petitions always have the official summary, drafted
by the Attorney General’s office, in front of them. When the issue in on
the ballot, voters have access to its language and pro/con arguments in
the Secretary of State’s voter information booklet.
Fact # Two. The only "problem" with initiative petitions is that, once
on the ballot, they sometimes win, thereby asserting the will of the
voters against the will of some special interest groups.
CLT has been involved in many petition drives, both alone and in
coalitions. CLT staffers have collected tens of thousands of signatures.
We know how the process works, and we know that this bill will make it
impossible to get any issue on the ballot ever again.
We appreciate the opposition to this bill by Secretary of State William
Galvin, especially his very valid concern that signers will be harassed
by opponents. We know from experience that this will happen – and even
his proposed language creating criminal penalties for this behavior
won’t help. During a recent signature challenge to a CLT petition,
opponents told signers they were "Barbara Anderson"; there was no
conceivable way to identify or prosecute those liars. (See: CLT
News Advisory, Apr. 13, 1998 -- "Those
Subpoenas Are Not Ours!")
The group that was opposing that CLT petition included Arline Isaacson,
who in her role as lobbyist for the Mass. Teachers Association has
fought the initiative petition process for years. In her role as
lobbyist for gay marriage, she is supporting this bill. As she and her
allies wanted to keep the income tax rollback off the ballot by any
means whatsoever, she and other allies want to use this bill to keep the
anti-gay marriage petitioners from getting signatures this fall.
This Election Laws bill is a weak and phony front for hatred of the
petition process that brings issues into the public arena for debate.
The gay marriage issue, and all issues, would be better served by both
sides expressing confidence in their position and trusting themselves to
sell it to the voters – instead of expending resources preventing the
campaign debate and driving a stake through the heart of the last best
vox populi. Legislators should kill this bill, not the initiative
process.
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